Adjustable floral package



J. N. CALLINICOS ADJUSTABLE FLORAL PACKAGE Jan, 23, 195

2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Oct. 5, 1954 INVENTOR: JCZ77Z65NQZZZUZ6C6Z5,

Jan. 28, 1958 J. N. cALuNlcos 2,821,297

ADJUSTABLE FLORAL PACKAGE Filed 001.. 5, 1954 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 @Z/ZJM WM ADJUSTABLE FLORAL PACKAGE James N. Callinicos, Whitestone, N. Y.

Application October 5, 1954, Serial No. 461,990

2 Claims. (Cl. 206-46) The present invention relates to an improved paperboard carton or packaging unit particularly intended for the use of florists in putting up and protecting potted plants and other sorts of floral displays. The improved unit affords a package in which such a commodity may be handled conveniently, as in transportation, in the manner of a completely stable object, not subject to tipping, shifting or sway. It is also evident that the unit is suitable for use in the packing of other objects which, like the floral objects mentioned, are characterized by a relatively large or massive base, and an upstanding portion requiring some degree of lateral restraint in order to be properly protected against shift, tipping, impact or other damage.

To these ends, the invention affords a protective paperboard cartoning unit having features of adjustability which adopt the same to the packaging of widely varying sizes and types of objects, particularly floral assemblages of the foregoing description. It consists, in one illustrated adaptation, of an upright walled, box-like outer casing in which a conventional plant or flower pot is suitably housed in the manner of a standard paperboard carton body. The walls of this casing or outer body are preferably held in upstanding position by a releasable tongue and slit connection of an opposed pair thereof, which intervene between other walls integrally hinged to a bottom forming or base panel, and a set of adjustable restraining and protective panels are provided within the thus constituted outer casing. These, in the use of the invention mentioned above, are disposed in encircling, upwardly convergent relation to an upstanding, ordinarily unstable portion of the plant or other floral unit.

So disposed, the panels in question, when bent in a generally conical or pyramidal outline, are quickly and easily secured together in this shape, as by staples or stitches. They thereafter afford the desired lateral confining restraint of the upstanding portion of the encased object.

While an inwardly and upwardly convergent relationship of the protector panels to the protected plant or other object is desirable in many instances, the particular nature of the latter is actually determinative of the ultimate outline of the package. The panels of the same are in effect custom tailored to fit the enclosed object, and the angular inclination and exact shape of those panels and, indeed of the outer casing walls, depend on the contour of the object.

As an example of this versatility and adaptability, the nature of the improved packaging unit is such that in another arrangement an outwardly divergent, dished securement of the protector flaps and coacting outer casing walls will enable a florist to use the same packaging unit in putting up more widely spread floral and foliage arrangements or displays.

In such an adaptation the protective panels will usually be secured by stapling or stitching to the adjacent walls, thus defining an upwardly divergent, shallow dish type receptacle exerting the desired lateral restraint of the en- 2,821,297 Patented Jan. 28, 1958 closed commodity, as distinguished from an internal generally conical upward shield more closely surrounding an upright object to be protected, the whole housed within outer walls which are in upstanding relation to a bottom base panel of the unit.

In a more specific sense the invention contemplates the creasing or scoring of the protector flaps of the unit, with the object of facilitating bending thereof to a curved contour, thus to better cup and laterally restrain the upstanding object which is packaged by the improved unit.

The foregoing statements are indicative in a general way of the nature of the invention. Other and more specific objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art upon a full understanding of the construction and operation of the improved cartoning unit.

A single embodiment of the invention is presented herein for purpose of illustration. It will be appreciated that the invention may be incorporated in other modified forms coming equally within the scope of the appended claims.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a top plan view of a paperboard blank from which the improved packaging unit is fabricated;

Fig. 2 is a view in perspective illustrating a completed floral container embodying the unit in one of a considera ble range of optional relationships of its parts to one another;

Fig. 3 is a view in end elevation of the package illustrated in Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 is a view in longitudinal section along line 4-4 of Fig. 3; and

Fig. 5 is a view in vertical section showing a modified adaptation or use of the packaging unit to accommodate a different size and more widely spread type of floral arrangement.

Referring now to Fig. 1, the improved unit is manually formed by the user from a blank of flexible paperboard stock which is died out in a generally rectangular external outline, and to this end the blank is internally cut and creased to provide flexibly connected panels and subdivisions of panels, thus enabling optional manipulations thereof in the ways shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4 and in Fig. 5 of the drawings. Pairs of opposed, straight parallel creases 11, 12 define a rectangular bottom or base panel 10 of the packaging unit, shown in the illustrated embodiment as being square. Like rectangular side wall panels 13 are integrally hinged to base 10 by means of parallel creases 11, and each side wall panel 13 carries a pair of only slightly differing end wall forming flaps 14, 15. These are integrally hinged onto the wall panels 13 by parallel creases 17, 18 at a right angle to creases 11, the outer ends of which they join.

Flaps 14, 15 are of a well known tongue and slit type adapted to be manually united quickly in releasable engagement with one another. They have lock tongues 19, 26 extending therefrom, the tongues 19 on flaps 14 facing inwardly of the periphery of the blank and the tongues 20 on the flaps 15 facing outwardly, and these tongues are partially separated at inward bays from the remainder of flaps 14, 15, as by oppositely extending slits 21. When flaps 14, 15 are swung inwardly toward one another in upstanding relation to base 10 the mating of tongues 19, 20 at the slits 21 will afford a releasable end wall construction for each end of the packaging unit. Such an outer four walled casing particularly characterizes the arrangement of the parts of the unit which is shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4.

The blank is completed by protective panel section, generally designated 22, integrally articulated to opposite ends of base 10 by creases 12, and it is with the relationship of these protective panel members to a floral arrangement housed in the packaging unit, and especially 3 with their optional, widely selective relationship to the remaining parts of the unit, that the invention primarily deals.

Each protective panel section 22 comprises a generally rectangular, inner end protector panel 23 directly adjoining crease 12, provided further with an outer, transversely extending and multiple creased conforming flap 24, which flap is integrally hinged to panel 23 by means of a crease 25 paralleling the crease 12. Flap 24 is provided with outwardly flaring, bendable tabs 26 at its opposite ends, creases 27 in alignment with the edges of panel 23 serving to bendably subdivide tabs 26 from the remainder of flap 24.

Otherwise, a pair of outwardly extending convergently angled creases 28 further subdivide section 22 bendably into relatively flexible conforming areas 29 of triangular shape adjoining either side of panel 23; creases 28 also provide flap 24 with further subdivided panel increments 30 between its center and the end tabs 26. An inwardly arcuate notch or recess 31 is provided in the center of flap 24, further to facilitate conforming of the latter with the side outline of a floral object protected thereby.

In a use depicted in Figs. 2, 3 and 4. an object to be packaged which has a characteristic, relatively massize and large sized base, such as the soil-filled pot of a plant, is positioned upon rectangular base panel 10 of the blank shown in Fig. 1. Its protective panel sections 22 are then swung upwardly about creases 12 sufliciently to enable end wall defining panels 14, 15 to be swung inwardly and tongue-interconnected with one another at mating slits 21. With the outer casing part of the package thus set up, the end tabs 26, side panel portions 30 and triangular flap portions 29 of the protective sections 22 are then cupped inwardly in generally arcuate form and the sections are brought into lateral restraining engagement with the upright stem or stems of the plant, as at the conforming recesses or notches 31.

In this position, the tab extensions 26 or other parts of the respective protective sections 22 may be overlapped and quickly secured together by a staple or stitch, leaving the packaged commodity as illustrated in Figs. 2, 3 and 4 of the drawings. The upstanding, inherently unstable portion of the plant is effectively sustained by encircling engagement of the protective members 22 therewith. Sidewise sway of the plant is prevented and a very com pact and convenient means for transporting the same, either manually or in a truck, is afforded by the packaging unit.

Another adaptation or use of the improved unit is illustrated in Fig. 5 of the drawings, in which a wider based. more spread out object, such as a dished arrangement of flowers, is packaged with equal effectiveness. Here,

the end wall flaps 14, 15 are not interlocked with one another, but instead are overlapped with protective flap sections 22, in a degree dictated by the size of the flowers and foliage confined. Then the subdivisions of the flaps are stapled or stitched to the adjacent wall, resulting in a relatively shallow confining unit which holds the floral arrangement in proper array during handling or transportation. Other foldings of sections 22 in difierent relationships of the crease-subdivided areas thereof will produce a wide range of shapes of the protective and confining structure oflered by the unit.

I claim:

1. A flower package comprising a floral object and a folded paperboard unit packaging the same, said unit comprising a base panel on which said object rests, side walls integrally connected by creases to said base panel and disposed in vertically upstanding relation thereto, releasably connected end wall forming flaps hinged to ends of said side walls and spanning the adjoining end margins of said base panel in vertical relation thereto, and internal object restraining wall sections integrally connected to said adjoining end margins, said object restraining sections being disposed inwardly of said walls and being subdivided by creases into flexibly connected, inwardly cupped areas in upwardly convergent relation, surrounding and confining said floral object.

2. A flower package comprising a floral object and a folded paperboard unit packaging the same, said unit comprising a base panel on which said object rests, side walls integrally connected by creases to said base panel and positioned in oppositely disposed vertically upstanding relation thereto, releasably connected end wall forming flaps hinged to ends of said side walls and spanning end margins of said base panel in Vertical relation thereto, internal object restraining sections connected to said base panel and disposed within said walls and being subdivided by creases into flexibly connected, inwardly cupped areas in upwardly convergent relation, surrounding and confining said floral object, with areas of one of said sections overlapped on those of the other in a degree determined by said object, and means securing said areas together at the so determined overlap.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 661,071 OMeara Nov. 6, 1900 1,439,426 Lemke -i ,Dec. 19, 1922 1,515,983 Williams Nov. 18, 1.924 1,866,317 Miner July 5, 1932 2,138,112 Means et a1. Nov. 29, 1938 2,492,454 Anderson Dec. 27, 1949 2,507,080 Acker May 9, 1950 

